If your heart is fractured and needs repairs or needs restoration. God wants to restore it to complete restoration. Because He is the God of healing, restoration, and resurrection. He brings things and people back to life from the dead and brings them back together in a way that cannot be torn apart.
But let me just say, if you are discouraged or cannot seem to see where hope is. Then let me tell you I have been there with a fractured heart full of pain, full of discouragement, and full of sorrow.
But then when I finally, surrendered to God and quit the tug of war with my will against His I was able to experience God's unfailing love fill the empty places within my heart that needed to be filled.
However, sometimes when God heals the fracture in our hearts it takes longer than we want and so we get frustrated. Yet, do not give up but press into the presence of God because in a relationship in Him we gain what we need and end up wanting in the long run compared to what we thought we wanted in the beginning.
Whether it is a circumstance or situation, or a job, a position, a relationship that is fractured that looks impossible to fix or be restored. Yet, Jesus wants to restore it completely.
Remember God can do the impossible and He does the impossible!
But we have to be willing to surrender and allow God space to repair and restore things without our pride or need to control things. And we have to be willing to go to the lonely places that we are scared to face. Because if we do not face these things or places with God we will not be able to face them or break free from them alone.
We must rely on Jesus to break free from the things that are holding us back to gain victory in Christ alone.
Let's face it, we do not have the power alone to repair or restore our fractured hearts by ourselves. The only one who can do that is Jesus Christ who defeated death itself.
The other thing I want to emphasize is in trusting God for the impossible to restore our fractured hearts and believing for it we must wait with expectancy. Waiting with expectancy puts hope within our hearts and gives us something to look forward to instead of dwelling on the negative things or the things we cannot change.
Also, in relying on Jesus to restore our fractured hearts instead of trying to fix things within our strength we gain a renewing strength, a new heart, and a new spirit within us.
Yet, we do have to be willing to receive it and be willing to yield our will's to God. The point is we have to be able to submit to God's authority instead of our fractured limited authority.
What I mean by this is we cannot have our cake and eat it too. In a manner of speaking, because being self-sufficient will get us nowhere.
Whereas, relying on Jesus and waiting with expectancy will bring us peace and will give us a restored heart. Because that is what Jesus does He restores what is broken and repairs what needs to be fixed.
"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit."(Psalm51:10-12ESV).
"And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit, I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules."(Ezekiel 36:26-27ESV).
See God will give us a new heart by restoring it and giving us a heart of flesh instead of one made of stone that is hard or indifferent.
But our hearts have to be turned towards Him and we need to be willing and positioned to receive the new heart that God is going to give us. To receive the new heart we have to humble ourselves before God.
Moreover, we cannot get stuck in the traditions of religion or lip service. The traditions of religion and lip service can cause us to be near with our mouths but our hearts can be far from God.
When our hearts are far from God than serving Him becomes only about going through the motions to just get by instead of willingly pursuing God with an open heart for God to come in to fix our fractured hearts. And when our hearts are far from God worshiping Him becomes vain and superficial.
Thus, in allowing God to restore our fractured hearts from the brokenness and pain we have experienced we need to press into the presence of God and humbly seek God with a pure heart by setting aside selfish motives or self-sufficient motives to do things on our own.
In seeking God to restore our fractured hearts it is about being willing to admit where we have been wrong and where our motives have been wrong to receive the new heart of flesh that He wants to give us.
Most importantly, I realize that this goes against everything this world and culture teach us to do these days. But following God is more important than being accepted by this world. This world and culture will disappoint us every single time, but God does not fail and does not lose a single victory.
Yet, we have to decide what we want most. Whether we want God to restore our fractured hearts and humble ourselves before Him. On the other hand, we have to ask ourselves, do we want to continue to struggle on our own? And continue to go through the motions of lip service and vain worship.
See traditions of religion will get us stuck in doing things just because instead of doing or worshiping God out of love. Another way of putting it is, doing things because of traditions in religion is doing it out of obligation instead of doing it out of love and devotion.
"This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men."(Matthew 15:8-9ESV).
God doesn't care about traditions. He cares about our hearts and being in a relationship with Him. The thing I love about this passage in the gospel of Matthew is how Jesus was revealing to the Pharisees is that traditions and commandments are of the law which Jesus Himself came and fulfilled are flawed.
Thus, as humans we like the Pharisees fall short in keeping. But because of the work of Jesus Christ, we do not have to worry about keeping the strict laws, traditions, and commandments.
The point that I want to make here is, our fractured broken hearts do not need the law or traditions to save us. It is the healing powers of Jesus Christ we need to restore our broken hearts which need mending.
We do not have to hide what is broken inside of our fractured hearts, because God restores what is broken. God restores things to completion. And the glory of God is revealed incomplete restoration.
References:
English Standard Version Study Bible (2008) Crossway Publishing, Wheaton ILL,
Picture by: wix.com
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